Double

by Bill Pronzini

  You couldn’t see anything through the gates because they were made of solid wood. And you couldn’t see anything over the wall because it was a good eight feet high. I looked for a bell or something for a visitor to announce himself, but there wasn’t anything at all. So now what? I thought. Climb the wall like one of the monos? Beat the gate down? Stand around and wait until somebody comes out? Start yelling? Use my private-eye cunning?

  Cunning was what solved the problem for me: I reached down and tried the gate latch, and it wasn’t locked, and I opened it and walked in. Norteamericano mentality. People down here didn’t have to put bolts and locks and chains on their property, like we did up in the civilized world.

  A gravel drive led through a jungle garden of palms, banana trees, flowering shrubs, and mosquitoes that kept trying to bite my neck. Behind the screen of vegetation I had glimpses of the villa; then the drive jogged to the left and widened into a clearing, and I could see all of the house. It was perched at the edge of a downslope, no doubt to take advantage of an impressive view of the bay and the Sea of Cortez in the distance. It had three wings, all of them of white stucco with red tile roofs, framing a central courtyard that contained more trees and shrubs and the inevitable mosaic-tile fountain. To one side of the clearing was a carport with two cars parked under it—a dusty black Mercedes and a small Japanese compact.

  I went toward the courtyard. When I got close enough, I could see that a tunnel-like passageway led through the villa’s back wing, so that you could go straight from the courtyard onto what appeared to be a large terrace. From the terrace, carried on the dying wind, came the sound of voices. And one of them was the piping voice of a child.

  A couple of paces inside the courtyard, I paused to consider how I would handle things with Carlton Ferguson. I was still considering when a door to the wing on my left opened and a woman came out. She saw me and stopped, and we stood there staring at each other for about five seconds before she said in a low anguished voice, “Oh my God.”

  She was the woman who had kidnapped Timmy, the woman I knew as Nancy Clark.

  31 McCONE

  Sun was streaming into the room when I woke on Tuesday morning. I sat up and looked at the clock. A few minutes after ten. I’d overslept.

  Then, because the damage had been done and a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt, I lay back down again.

  The room was the one I’d occupied my whole life before I moved north to go to school at Berkeley. It was a pleasant place, with pale yellow walls and flowered curtains, but it bore no traces of my former occupancy. The McCone family was too big and the grandchildren were too numerous to preserve shrines to departed members, and soon after I’d left home, my remaining possessions had been relegated to the attic. It was just as well: I really didn’t want to have to look at high-school pennants, pictures of old boyfriends, and snapshots of me in my cheer-leading costume and prom dresses. About the only thing I missed was the red plush kangaroo with a baby in its pouch that had been my constant companion until a disgracefully advanced age. Roo-Roo had taken the place of dolls; I had hated to play with dolls.

  My thoughts quickly turned from the kangaroo to more troubling things. Don, for one. I ought to call him again but, frankly, I was afraid the woman named Laura would answer the phone. Laura, who in no way was his cousin from Tacoma. Don had lied to me—something he had never done before....

  Think about something else, I told myself. Think about what you plan to do today, about Borrego Springs and Les Club.

  That club connected several people—maybe more than I’d thought of last night. I ought to drive out to Borrego Springs, see what it was. But before I did that, I’d better make a few phone calls.

  I got up, showered, and dressed in a hurry, then took out Elaine’s address book. Since I could hear Ma rattling around in the kitchen, I used the phone in the living room. First I called Sugarman, only to be told by her secretary that she was out of town. On an impulse, I asked, “Is she in Borrego Springs?”

  “Possibly. She didn’t say where she was going.”

  “But she does go to Borrego Springs frequently? She does know people there?”

  There was a pause. “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Ms. Sugarman about that.” Which probably meant the answer was yes to both questions.

  I took Arthur Darrow’s business card from my pocket. He was an investment counselor—although I wondered how much business he did in a desert community like Borrego Springs—and likely to be in his office at this hour. But when I dialed the business number on the card, the answering-service operator said he was out of town.

  Next I called the home number, hoping to speak to Mrs. Darrow—if there was one—or some other member of the family. The phone rang several times, and then a woman’s voice said, “Darrow residence.”

  “Is Arthur Darrow in?”

  “I’m sorry, he’s unavailable.”

  “Is this Mrs. Darrow?”

  “This is their housekeeper.”

  “When will Mr. Darrow be available?”

  “Not for several days.”

  “Is he on vacation?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t give out that information. I’ll be glad to take a message, if you like.”

  “Is Mr. Darrow at Les Club?”

  There was a pause. “Where?”

  “Les Club.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’ll leave a message—”

  “Thank you. I’ll call back.”

  I hung up and began looking through the address book for June Paxton’s number, then remembered it wasn’t there. Even though I’d dialed it many times since Karyn Sugarman had given it to me, the intervening period had wiped it from my mind. I’d have to find the piece of paper Sugarman had written it on, which should be somewhere in my purse, but first a cup of coffee would help.

  I went down the hall to the kitchen, where I found Ma kneading bread. She is an expert baker—one of the few talents I’ve inherited from her. She frowned when she saw me.

  “Are you on your way out again?”

  “Yes, Ma.” I went and got a cup of coffee from the percolator.

  “You’ve been mighty busy this visit.”

  “Well, the convention takes a lot of time.”

  “I thought that was over Sunday.”

  I hesitated. Ma worried about me; I’d never been able to fool her into thinking my job wasn’t dangerous. If she knew I was conducting an investigation, it would only upset her at a time when—given John’s problems—she didn’t need any more aggravation. Finally I said, “I have to admit it. I’ve met a man.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “A man? At the convention?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s not another detective, is he? The one with the Italian name who called?” Ma had not approved of my relationship with the homicide cop Greg Marcus, because she’d been afraid he’d involve me in more of what she called “those terrible things you poke your nose into.” She hadn’t met Don, but I sensed she thought his work as a disc jockey too frivolous to qualify him as a proper suitor. And I was afraid that she would heartily disapprove of another investigator.

  “No,” I said, remembering Wally and the date we were supposed to make, “he’s a lie-detector salesman.”

  She looked relieved. “A lie-detector salesman. Do they make good money?”

  “Probably. I think they work on commission.”

  “Hmm.” She gave the bread a final punch and popped it into a bowl to rise. “Are you seeing him today?”

  “We’re supposed to have dinner.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you’re going out now.”

  I set my coffee cup in the sink. “Well, if I go to dinner, I have to have something nice to wear.”

  “You’re going shopping?”

  “Yes.” Eventually, in the course of the next few months, I supposed I would go shopping. But since picking out a dress couldn’t possibly take all day, and the trip to Borreg
o Springs would, I added, “And then I thought I might take a drive out into the desert.”

  She looked skeptical about that idea, but merely said, “Have you made any headway with your brother?” She has a way of switching subjects that only those who understand how her mind works can follow.

  “Not much. He’s as stubborn as the rest of us.”

  “Try again, will you please?”

  “Yes, Ma.” I kissed her lightly on the cheek and started out.

  “Sharon,” she said.

  I turned.

  “Be careful, while you’re ... uh, shopping.”

  I have never been able to fool my mother. Never.

  The first thing I did was drive downtown to the phone company to check their directory for Borrego Springs. Since no one was home at Arthur Darrow’s house, I needed more to go on than just his address. There was no listing for Les Club, or anything other than the town’s two country clubs. Somehow I doubted either of them was it.

  Then I went over to the recorder’s office in the county courthouse and asked a few questions of the white-haired old man behind the desk. He was friendly, with bright blue eyes that twinkled like a man’s half his age, and he flirted a little as he showed me how to search for property listings. Soon I was ensconced at a long table with a big registry for the Anza-Borrego desert area.

  And about an hour later I had the location of a piece of property listed in the name of Les Club, Inc.

  So it was incorporated. That meant the state would have a listing of the corporation’s officers, and, given enough time, I could find out who was behind it. The trouble was, I had no time to spare.

  I went back to the desk and asked the man if he could help me figure out the property’s exact location. He came over and explained about tracts and lot numbers, then sketched a rough map on a piece of scratch paper.

  I thanked him and hurried off to find out about Les Club.

  32 “WOLF”

  Neither Nancy Clark nor I moved for another few seconds after she spoke. I could feel the sweat trickling down my face, down from my armpits; the hot Mexican sun burned against the back of my neck. From out on the terrace, the little boy’s voice rose in a shrill excited cry —a sound that some tropical bird hidden nearby mimicked with surprising accuracy.

  I wanted her to move first, to break the tableau, because I wanted to see what she’d do. She didn’t do much. Just came toward me in a herky-jerky stride, with her long legs flashing in the sunlight and shadow. She was wearing a two-piece black bathing suit that didn’t cover much territory and her skin was browned to the color of toast; but when she got up close I could see that her face had gone pale under the tan. Her eyes had a stricken look.

  “Who are you?” she said. “What do you want?”

  “I came looking for Timmy.”

  “How did you find us?”

  “Something the boy said when I talked to him in San Diego.”

  “Why? What do you want with Timmy?”

  “That depends. His mother’s in San Diego now, you know.”

  Her mouth opened a little; her tongue flicked out like a cat’s to lick away a droplet of sweat from her upper lip. The stricken look stayed in her eyes, but it had been joined by smoldering anger.

  She said, “What are you, some kind of detective?”

  “Yes, ma’am. The private kind.”

  “Did Lauterbach send you? Is that it?”

  “No.”

  The negative seemed to throw her off-balance for a moment. Then she said, “That bitch, then. Did she send you?”

  “You mean Mrs. Ferguson?”

  “Who else would I mean? Well, I’ll tell you this, mister—you’re not taking Timmy back to her. He belongs here with his father.”

  “That’s not what the courts in Michigan decided.”

  “The courts in Michigan don’t know what a nasty cunt Ruth Ferguson is. If they did they wouldn’t have granted her custody of a dog, much less a child.”

  “Meaning what, Miss ... Clark’s not your real name, is it?”

  “It’s Pollard, and I don’t give a damn if you know it.”

  “Meaning what about Ruth Ferguson, Miss Pollard?”

  “Meaning just what I said. She abused Timmy. You don’t know that, do you? Well, it’s true.”

  “Abused him how?”

  “Whipped him. Locked him in a dark closet for hours at a time, without food, when she decided he’d been naughty. God, what I’d like to do to that woman!”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Carl found it out. She’s not the only one who can hire detectives.”

  “So you snatched Timmy and brought him here. Kidnapping is a major crime, Miss Pollard. You can get twenty years in jail for it.”

  “I don’t care about that. Don’t you understand? We had to get Timmy away from his mother before she really did something ugly to him.”

  “‘We’?” I said. “What’s your relationship to Carlton Ferguson?”

  “I live with him. I have ever since he divorced that bitch and moved down here.”

  Which made her the “very beautiful woman” Pablo Venegas had told me about, the one who shared this villa with Ferguson. Yeah, that figured. Having her grab the kid out of his school was better, safer than hiring somebody. The fewer people who knew where Timmy was being taken, the slimmer the odds that he could be traced. Keep it in the family, I thought cynically, that’s the best way to do it.

  “Aunt Nancy! Hey, where are you?”

  We both turned. Timmy came running out of the tunnel in the back wing—a white streak in a pair of flowered swim trunks, wet blond hair flattened down on his head. He slowed when he saw us, stopped altogether when he recognized me. But then he smiled and came the rest of the way to where we were; he seemed pleased to see me, the way kids are when they get an unexpected visit from an adult who was nice to them.

  “You’re the man from San Diego,” he said. “The man with the funny name.”

  I nodded. “How are you, Timmy?”

  “Great! My dad’s got a neat pool.”

  “He does, huh?”

  “Yeah. Aunt Nancy wouldn’t let me go swimming any of the other places, but ever since we got here I can swim all I want.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I’m getting a tan too. See?”

  He turned around so I could see that the white skin of his back was reddened with a light sunburn. But I could also see something else, something that brought a tightness into my chest and made my hands flex involuntarily. Down low on the boy’s back were a series of horizontal, all-but-healed marks that looked to have been lacerations—the kind you get when somebody lays a stick across your hide.

  I glanced at Nancy Pollard. She knew I’d noticed the marks, and her mouth was set in a thin, tight line. Her expression said: There, you see?

  Timmy was facing me again. “Did you come here to see my dad?” he asked.

  “Yes. But I wanted to see you, too.”

  “You did? Really?”

  “Really. Is your dad here now?”

  “Sure, he’s out by the pool. Come on, I’ll show you.” He wheeled and ran a little way and then stopped to see if we were following. “Come on! You too, Aunt Nancy!” Then he was off again, into the shadows of the tunnel.

  I went after him, not hurrying; Nancy Pollard fell in alongside, walking in a stiff-backed way, eyes straight ahead. When we emerged onto the terrace I saw that it was about the size of a football field, floored in squares of colored tile, with a waist-high stone parapet all around. The pool was on the left, an L-shaped job made out of gray stone, without the usual diving board and chromium ladders, so that it resembled a pond. A couple of wooden walls had been erected on the inner sides, to help support a clear Plexiglas roof; the other two sides were open and had pole supports and rolls of mosquito netting—a nifty arrangement that would allow you to drop the netting and swim at night without getting gnawed on.

  Near the pool was a palm tree
to provide shade, and under its fronds, on one of several pieces of dark wood deck furniture, was a brawny guy in trunks and huaraches and a pair of wraparound sunglasses, reading a magazine. He glanced up as Timmy raced toward him shouting something about a visitor, and when he saw me he got up on his feet. It was like watching a bear get up. He had enough hair on his chest and shoulders and arms to make a winter coat for a midget.

  Timmy ran to him and he put his arm around the boy. He wore an expression of mild puzzlement, but that changed when Nancy Pollard nodded at me and said, “Carl, he’s a detective,” in a flat warning voice. His face closed up hard, his eyes got dark with anger and something else—resolve, maybe. You could see the muscles tensing up and down his body.

  I stopped and Nancy Pollard stopped, and we all looked at each other in heavy silence. I didn’t want to talk in front of the boy, and neither did Ferguson. He said, “Timmy.”

  “Yes, Dad?”

  “Go inside and ask Maria-Elena to bring three bottles of cold beer and some snacks. Stay there and help her get everything together.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes. Go on, now. Be a good boy.”

  “Can I have another of those mango drinks?”

  “Tell Maria I said it was okay.”

  Timmy nodded, gave me a shy smile, and was off again. Nancy Pollard moved to stand next to Ferguson; the two of them were like a barrier between the running boy and me. None of us said anything until Timmy was out of sight. Then Ferguson said, controlling the words, “You’re not taking him. Not unless you’ve got a platoon of Mexican policía waiting outside.”

  “I didn’t come here for that, Mr. Ferguson.”

  “No? Then why did you come?”

  “To meet you. And to find out some things.”

  “What things? Who the hell are you?”

  “He’s a private detective,” Nancy Pollard said. “He was at the hotel in San Diego. He’s the one I caught talking to Timmy before that woman died.”